Teaching Narrative Structure Without a Boring Plot Graph
📌 Story mountain (Freytag’s pyramid) is a nice little intro to standard story construction. It’s good for studying classic structure like you find in old school Disney films and fairy tales. But it’s not great for teaching pupils how to write stories. We aren’t aiming to get them to write stories that start off totally serene and then have a simple climax. We’re trying to communicate the idea that stories can start at various points on the timeline, and then they usually go through several increases in tension. The pyramid also misses out key information about what makes a story great. It doesn’t refer at all to what makes a great narrator or a great character. Whilst it’s easy to understand, on its own it seems sort of a pointless thing to teach. Stories have a crisis towards the end. ok, understood. Got it. Now let’s get to something a bit more useful.
🟪 What They Actually Need to Know About Narrative Structure
Pupils need to understand that in stories, the plot keeps on intensifying. Coincidence can get your characters into trouble, but it’s not a believable way to get them out of it. They need to study different twists and turns of entire stories, not just read the first halves of books and then watch the film on the last day of term. The old national curriculum bullet point one, subsection 1 is about getting them to read books, whole books.
They need to focus on cause and effect, and how writers position the reader, with each twist and turn, you can feel differently about the character. Our perspective changes or builds. But then they also need to connect this to real life moments of realisation they’ve had. Times when they’ve really felt a scenario shift or the penny drop.
They need terminology to help guide them, so they look for crucial features, not just any features. Naming word classes is ok, but it’s just not really a life-skill, I’m not really convinced about it’s usefulness outside of language acquisition.
For year 7, Introduce terms like these early on.
1. Shift
A clear change in tone, mood, setting or character attitude.
Why it matters: It trains pupils to track emotional change, or intensification, build up and release.
E.g. “There’s a shift from tension to calm when…”
2. Reveal
A moment when something is exposed or understood by the narrator, character or reader.
Why it matters: Teaches cause-and-effect. Perfect for analysis and creative writing.
E.g. “The writer reveals the truth just after the character makes a choice…”
3. Mirror
A moment that echoes or reflects something earlier.
Why it matters: Helps pupils spot structure, character development, patterns and symbolism.
E.g. “The ending mirrors the start — but now the character has changed.”
4. Reinforce
A repeated word, image or phrase that strengthens a theme or character trait.
Why it matters: Makes pupils notice purposeful repetition of ideas and feelings not just words.
E.g. “The phrase ‘no choice’ reinforces her feeling of powerlessness.”
5. Juxtapose
Two contrasting ideas, images or moments placed close together.
Why it matters: Trains higher-level interpretation. Allows them to start gaining insights about how to create powerful moments.
E.g. “The peaceful setting is juxtaposed with violent memories.”
6. Analepsis (Flashback)
When the narrative jumps back in time.
Why it matters: Helps pupils talk about how information is revealed and why order matters.
E.g. “The analepsis interrupts the tension to give us emotional context.”
7. Perspective
The point of view or angle from which the story is told — or shifts in who we focus on.
Why it matters: Supports analysis of bias, tone, and reader manipulation. But also provides opportunity for discussion around truth and empathy.
E.g. “The change in perspective makes us sympathise with the villain.”
8. Contrast (or antithesis if you have a confident group)
When two ideas, characters or settings are clearly different.
Why it matters: Great as a more accessible cousin to juxtaposition. Is a great way for pupils to explore how to make key ideas obvious.
E.g. “The contrast between her cold voice and kind words shows…”
🟪 4 Better Ways to Teach Story Structures Without a Graph
1. “Snapshot” Scenes
Get students to write three key moments only: one before, one during, one after the central change. You can do this by starting the story for them and then getting them to do some fan-fiction, or you can do it by doing some world building work first, so you tell them what’s going on in this scenario they’re writing about. You don’t want them to have to make up their own stories for tasks like this. It takes too long. There are too many decisions for them to make.
It helps them learn pacing, escalation, and turning points.
2. Reverse the Story
Start with a moment and work backwards. Show pupils part of a short story or chapter, something that feels resolved, and then get pupils to articulate what things must be true for that to have happened. You can choose the very ending of a story, but this isn’t always as easy to work with as you might think.
It helps them think about fixing plot holes + give characters clearer motivations
3. Same dynamic, different setting
Start by giving a scenario, probably one that involves two characters. What they want and what they’re afraid of. Put then in a specific scenario with a distinct setting. Read pupils a model paragraph. Then give the pupils different settings and explore with them how they would affect the plot and the mood of the story. If you have a confident class, you could play with time periods at this point. Put your story in the 1980's or 1950's, and see if they can explain how the character roles might be different, or perceived differently in those time periods.
It helps pupils explore how the setting can determine which character traits are seen as strengths
4. One Character, One Struggle
Experiment with having just one character in a struggle with their environment. Pupils tend to overcomplicate stories with boring intros to new characters or dialogue that doesn’t go anywhere. But you don’t have to deal with this, when they only have one character: Jungle explorer, mountain climber, surfer, marathon runner, or any character who is in a struggle with their environment, often provide easier, clearer ways for pupils to describe struggles. They also allow pupils to practise alternating between narration and internal thought which is notoriously tricky.
It can help pupils focus on the internal world of characters and how ‘grown up’ stories need this element to give them realism.
🟫Pitfalls to Avoid
Teaching too many one-off narrative writing lessons - you just end up going round the initial story creation phase a thousand times, but they never get any better at it.
Trying to do world building and writing skill all at once. it’s actually a bit too overwhelming
Being unclear about whether you want your students to write like it’s an exert from a novel, or write an extract for an exam. You and they, need to have a distinct idea of what these two things are. They require slightly different things. It doesn’t matter so much if there are plot holes if they feel they are writing a part from a book, you’d expect that. But in an exam style piece, plot holes are a significant problem.
🟫 Why the Plot Graph Fails
Old models aren’t inherently good models. To me, a mid 19th century story analysis, is interesting from a historical perspective, but it’s not very useful for my pupils.
They’ve already covered it in primary school
It is a primary level model, it’s like teaching them that stories have Beginnings middles and ends, true, but not in itself lesson worthy unless you’re going to teach how to create classic beginnings, middles or endings, and then how to break these stereotypes.
🟧 Recap
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Simplistic models can be too basic
Traditional structures like Freytag’s pyramid are too simplistic. They ignore character, narration, and the complexity of modern storytelling. -
Narratives are built on tension, twists, and perspective
Pupils should learn how structure affects the reader — including emotional shifts, reveals, and the writer’s control of information. Real growth comes when they link these techniques to real-life moments of clarity. -
Focus on structure terms that actually guide pupils
Use terms like shift, reveal, mirror, and juxtapose to help students track cause and effect, emotional development, and structural intent. -
Replace plot graphs with writing-based activities
Strategies like “Snapshot Scenes,” “Reverse the Story,” and “Same dynamic, different setting” make story structure more concrete and creative, without needing students to invent full plots. -
Avoid overwhelming or unfocused teaching sequences
Don’t mix world-building with writing skill lessons. Be clear about whether pupils are writing like authors or like exam candidates — the expectations and outcomes are different.